~ Musings outside my published canon

“Merry Christmas” at the Mall

A friend from church just sent me a link to this song, which has apparently struck a positive chord with a lot of people fed up with the political correctness of the “holiday season.” I hear that, but I just had to comment on the larger issue of using the acknowledgment of “Christmas” as a factor in determining, of all things, where to shop.

My potentially Grinchy comment on this song at YouTube:

I’m troubled that the whole setting for the song (at least it’s refrain) is a mall or “Christmas shopping” in general. “If you don’t see ‘Merry Christmas’ in the window, then you don’t go in that store?” I wish to God that we could separate Christmas and shopping/stores altogether, and live like people for whom Christmas has made the difference of a complete change of life — if we would celebrate not by buying for our families and friends who don’t need another thing, but by lavishing help on the family in serious need, the homeless veteran, the Christian refugees from ISIS, and so forth. Saying “Merry Christmas” in the way that puts Jesus at the heart of the holiday would mean taking the focus off from the store altogether and from what we will find under our Christmas tree and using the season to stay away from the malls and gather more with family, with friends, with church, and discover ways to reach out in loving and even saving ways.

Now I’m part of the problem: I’ve spent about a week’s salary on Christmas shopping (though I did refuse to do “Black Friday” because it irks the heck out of me that the commercial gods try to stoke our covetousness and acquisitiveness on the very day, or the dawn after, we’ve supposedly been thinking about the full and rich ways in which the one God has gifted us and supplied our needs). Nevertheless, this song really drives home for me how wrong our observance of Christmas has become if our main concern is shopping where people will acknowledge Christmas. So here’s an alternative refrain:

“If you don’t put Jesus first this Christmas season,

but worship at the mall,

you won’t be living like you know the reason

that he came to save us all.”

I’ll leave it to someone else to finish those lyrics and make an alternative video. 🙂